The Wizard of OzA musical fairy tale, length 60 min

All the way to the place I call home...

In Jera Ivanc’s adaptation, the magical Land of Oz stands as a metaphor for and allegory of an examination of the meaning of life, but above all, of the quest for home as an inherent desire of all human beings. In this production, which adopts a refined aesthetic and focuses on physical movement, the Land of Oz emerges as a symbol of Dorothy’s fears and doubts, her sense of her own imperfection and her search for answers to the questions that keep swirling through her head like a tornado. On their way to the omnipresent Oz, the newly united friends have to overcome obstacles and ward off the tricks of the Wicked Witch, growing and maturing into integral individuals.

While going through the ordeals thrown in their way on this journey from dawn to dusk, from the unconscious to the conscious, from darkness into light, the friends transform fear into courage, anger into gratitude, hatred into love, guilt into compassion, establishing themselves as integral beings. Will Dorothy find her home? Indeed, home is wherever we find ourselves, in everything around us: a starry night, raindrops in the colours of the rainbow, a child’s laughter, the wind underneath a bird’s wings... the mosaic of our lives. And this is precisely what the land of the Yellow Brick Road is: the land of Dorothy’s inner world, with the creatures of the Land of Oz forming the broad spectrum of her imagination, emotions and mind.

 The Wizard of Oz, one of the best-loved stories of American culture, was written in 1900 by Lyman Frank Baum under the title The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Feeling a strong desire to create a fairy tale that would take children into a fantasy world where wonder and cheer prevail over sorrow and misery, Baum wrote a story about pursuing yourself and a better life. An instant classic, The Wizard of Oz was soon adapted for the Broadway stage as a musical. Its most iconic adaptation was the 1939 film directed by Victor Fleming starring Judy Garland and featuring the song Over the Rainbow. Although intended for younger audiences, the LGL production is recommended for all ages, thanks to its universal theatrical language.

Yulia Roschina (1982) is a theatre and radio director who graduated from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, Ljubljana, in 2016 with a production of Phaedra (A Play on Absence). Underpinned by a visually strong and refined aesthetic, her poetics as director mainly draw on exploring the human psyche and intense work with actors. Ranging from theatre for children to opera, her credits as a director notably include theatre productions of Ivor Martinić’s When the Child Was a Child (Ljubljana City Theatre, 2015) and Nebojša Pop Tasić’s adaptation of Madame Bovary (The Slovene National Theatre, Nova Gorica, 2015). For the latter, Roschina won the Borštnik Award for best director. Her previous productions for the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre include Elder’s Tale (2013), We Are (2014), Peter Pan (2017) and The Little Prince (2019).